Hlearning* Begins

*Hlearning= home learning because typing it makes me giggle.
(Yes, Annika really thinks my lips are that big.)

As I loaded the second half of the fall pictures, I realized that they were almost every one pictures of things the girls had done during our hlearning weeks.  These snapshots served two purposes: to immortalize their creations so I could-- gasp!-- recycle many of them and, I suppose, I took them for pride's sake.  With three full-fledged formal learners and three Littles, to boot, this school year seemed fraught with more "now or never" importance than any that had come before.  I didn't want to arrive at spring and garden season full of regrets about my sloth or indifference (though I know some of that is inevitable).  I also wanted to deliberately include learning that, in the past, fell through the cracks for the sake of math and the more plodding parts of learning.  I wanted to consistently spend hours in art-making, art history, music-making, music history, Latin, and fun science stuff, in all of which I have only the barest knowledge base.  This requires concentrated effort on my part because it's all too easy to slide into apathy when one is feeling overwhelmed by the task at hand.





Just sitting down to schedule these aspects of learning overwhelmed me. (And lest anyone think I'm a time-slot Nazi, no better than a government school bell ringing ding-dong-time-to-move-along, we mix our days up all over the map, but I included these times to see if it would be possible to fit this amount of content area into one week).





The verdict?  No, it's not always possible to fit everything in, and that's okay, because even when time vanishes, our days are full of good and grace. This calling of giving my children a passion for learning that is vaster than my own still overwhelms me.  My inadequacies, my rotten temper and impatience, the gaping holes in my own knowledge-- all these lead away from joy, but joy should be the cornerstone of our homes and our learning.  Joy is the cornerstone of our faith.  Our faith is the cornerstone of all life, and so it goes.

God commands our joy.  He demands our delight in Him, which will, in turn, bring joy.  Joy begetting joy.  I've spent this several-season slump of blogging busily seeking, failing, trying, finding Joy on a daily basis.  More than anything, I'm grateful that the Father holds my children close, that their success lies not in learning facts and figures but in learning to love, and for His promise that He will shepherd them through. (Especially that last part, because I screw up every single day.)

As for the pictures of some shiny things we did with our days, forgive them.  They're all I've got.